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Topic: What does Armed/Disarmed option does for Smoke Detector? (Read 487 times)

I'm a bit confused. Just added First Alert CO & Smoke detector. In dashboard it gives me option to arm/disarm. What does it do exactly? Should I set it to armed to function? I understand this option for motion detectors but a bit puzzled about it's functionality related to smoke detector...

The whole armed/disarmed is a Vera concept, not of the Z-Wave device. You can use it to control when the Vera should alert you. For example, if you are at home you can set it to disarmed (using the house modes settings) as you would rather be busy putting out the fire than looking at your Vera alerts. Unless you live in a mansion of course.

Arming a sensor such as a smoke detector or motion sensor actually does 2 things1. It automatically triggers any sirens in your Z-Wave network when the sensor is armed but not when disarmed, even though they have not been explicitly linked. It also turns off sirens when the sensor goes idle.2. It enables any "Armed and tripped" triggers in your scenes. Note that you can choose a scene to trigger when a sensor is tripped and armed or when it is tripped whether armed or not.

Option 1 is the most convenient and is arguably what you want for smoke detectors but it may not always do the right thing for other devices such as motion sensors. To disable this automatic feature, go into the siren's control panel, select the advanced tab and change the "category_num" field from 24 (siren) to 3 (switch). Now you can explicitly trigger or untrigger your siren in scenes and have more control over behavior.

Well, as you said that you need to configure by email/SMS notification alert if you are not at home, so I think you should install Nest developed smoke detector. This smoke detector will tells you what?s wrong at your home and can even alert at your phone. Like, last week my friend also had installed Nest protect redesigned smoke detector by taking help from his local electricians Bryn Mawr PA team, where it has a Split-Spectrum Sensor, which tests itself automatically and give an alert notification automatically at your phone.